Oleum spill prompts recommendations surrounding public notification

The city's corporate communications department, fire, police and emergency services and Vale have come up with a number of recommendations to streamline how the public is notified of emergencies after an oleum spill which occurred at Vale's Copper Cliff plant July 1.

These parties met last week to discuss the incident, and what could have been done better.

“An emergency notification protocol does exist, but we recognized that there were challenges in enacting the protocol across the board,” said Tim Beadman, the city’s chief of emergency services, said in a press release.

“It was important that we bring everyone together to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and to review possible solutions to the challenges we encountered.”

Included among these recommendations are:

- A quarterly exercise will be performed to improve agencies’ familiarization with the emergency notification protocol;
- Each agency will ensure that the protocol is filtered down to field staff and operators to improve responsiveness;
- Formal activation and termination of the hazardous material release will be done by the 9-1-1 communications centre to streamline timely communications with members of the media and the public;
- Each agency will work to ensure better communications with the media and residents following an incident;
- Public education regarding what to do during a release of hazardous material will continue to ensure permeation of safety precautions at all levels of the local community.

“We know that with these enhancements to the protocol, as agencies we will be much better positioned to respond in a timely manner to potential issues and community concerns,” Beadman said. “The safety of the community is our top priority.”

“Our goal is to run our complex smelting and refining operations with zero incidents,” Steve Ball, a spokesperson for Vale, said in the press release.

“However, when incidents occur our response is always to put public and employee safety first by implementing the A.C.T. protocol immediately. We will continue to work effectively with the city’s emergency response teams to ensure this is always the case.”